Gerry Adams (Irish: Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh; born 6 October 1948 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála (TD) for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern Ireland and the largest nationalist party. From the late 1980s onwards, Adams was an important figure in the Northern Ireland peace process, initially following contact by the then Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader John Hume and subsequently with the Irish and British governments and then other parties. In 2005, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) indicated that its armed campaign was over and that it is now exclusively committed to democratic politics. Under Adams, Sinn Féin changed its traditional policy of abstentionism towards Oireachtas Éireann, the parliament of the Republic of Ireland, in 1986 and later took seats in the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly. However, Sinn Féin retains a policy of abstentionism towards the Westminster Parliament, but since 2002, receives allowances for staff and takes up offices in the House of Commons.

Micheál Martin (Irish pronunciation: [mʲiːçaːl̪ˠ]; born 1 August 1960) is an Irish politician who has been leader of Fianna Fáil since January 2011. He is a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Cork South–Central constituency. Prior to becoming party leader, Martin served as Minister for Education and Science (1997–2000), Minister for Health and Children (2000–04), Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (2004–08) and Minister for Foreign Affairs (2008–11).

As Minister for Health and Children in 2004, he introduced a ban on tobacco smoking in all Irish workplaces and established the Health Service Executive (HSE). Ireland was the first country to introduce a full workplace smoking ban. As Minister for Foreign Affairs in 2009, Martin travelled to Latin America for the first time, and made the first official visit to Cuba by an Irish government minister. That same year, he travelled to Khartoum following the kidnapping of Sharon Commins and Hilda Kawuki. In 2010, he became the first Western foreign minister to visit Gaza since Hamas took control there in 2007. On 18 January 2011, Brian Cowen accepted his resignation as Foreign Minister. On 26 January 2011, Fianna Fáil announced that Micheál Martin had been elected as the eighth leader of the party, following Brian Cowen's resignation as party leader on 22 January 2011. In the 2011 general election, Martin led the party to its worst showing in its 85 year history with a loss of 57 seats and a drop in its share of the popular vote to 17.4%.

Marian Finucane (born 1950) is an Irish broadcaster with Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). She has worked with the national broadcaster since in 1976, starting as a continuity announcer. She was the first presenter of Liveline. She currently presents The Marian Finucane Show at weekend lunchtimes on RTÉ Radio 1.

Marian Finucane was born in Dublin and educated at Scoil Chaitríona, and the College of Technology, Bolton Street, Dublin. She practised as an architect until 1974 when she joined RTÉ as a continuity announcer, having been recruited by Eoghan Harris. In 1976 she became a programme presenter working mainly on programmes concerned with contemporary social issues, especially those concerning women, in particular Women Today.

Finucane in 1979 was the recipient of a Jacobs' Award for Women Today. Her Liveline programme on radio, a combined interview and phone-in chat show on weekday afternoons. She won Radio Journalist of the Year Award in 1988.

Her television work included information programming on RTÉ such as "Consumer Choice" and the Garda investigation programme Crime Line.

Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993. He has also co-anchored CBS This Morning since January 2012. Rose, along with Lara Logan, has hosted the revived CBS classic Person to Person, a news program during which celebrities are interviewed in their homes, originally hosted from 1953 to 1961 by Edward R. Murrow.

Rose was born in Henderson, North Carolina, the only child of Margaret Frazier and Charles Peete Rose, Sr., tobacco farmers who owned a country store. As a child, Rose lived above his parents' store in Henderson and helped out with the family business from age seven. Rose admitted in a Fresh Dialogues interview that as a child his insatiable curiosity was constantly getting him in trouble. A high school basketball star, Rose entered Duke University intending to pursue a degree with a pre-med track, but an internship in the office of Democratic North Carolina Senator B. Everett Jordan got him interested in politics. Rose graduated in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in history. At Duke, he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. He earned a Juris Doctor from the Duke University School of Law in 1968. He met his wife, Mary (née King), while attending Duke.

Dolours Price (born 1951) is a former volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). She is also a politicial activist and critic of Gerry Adams and the current leadership of Sinn Féin.

Dolours Price and her sister, Marian Price, are the children of Albert Price, a prominent Irish Republican and former IRA member, from Belfast.

Price became involved in Irish republicanism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She participated in a car bombing of the Old Bailey on 8 March 1973. The explosion injured over 200 people and likely caused one person's death of heart failure.

The two sisters were arrested, along with Gerry Kelly, Hugh Feeney and six others, on the day of the bombing, as they were boarding a flight to Ireland. They were tried and convicted at the Great Hall on Winchester Castle on 14 November after a six-hour discussion by a jury. Although originally sentenced to life imprisonment, which was to run concurrently for each criminal charge, their sentence was eventually reduced to 20 years.